The video above shows how a daycare center in Georgia is helping give purpose to young lives through out. (video: Antonio di Vico)

This Friday, we visit Caritas Georgia, to see how art therapy is changing young lives at a daycare center.

When we published A Letter from Georgia two years ago, Anahit Mkhoyan, the director of the center, wrote:

I understood that change is one of the most important things in our lives. It helps us to stay humble in the continuous path of learning, it enriches us with knowledge and it makes us tolerant because we see that things can be at once good and bad in different ways and places.

So take a few moments, meet Anahit, and see how change is making a huge difference in some of the youngest people in that corner of the world.

An Indian villager cradles her baby while she joins others in a multi-linguistic Lord’s Prayer. Read about how catechists and missionaries are Reaching the Unreached in India in the Winter 2014 edition of ONE. (photo: John E. Kozar)

The video above offers a first look at the new church in Egypt dedicated to the Copts who were beheaded three years ago in Libya by ISIS. (video: World Watch Monitor/YouTube)

Church leaders in Jerusalem say no to taxation of church property(Vatican News) The Church leaders in Jerusalem have made a formal request to municipality of Jerusalem to withdraw their statement of imposing municipal taxes on Church properties. A statement released on Wednesday by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem states that the intention to impose municipal tax on Churches contradicts the historical position between Churches and civil authorities over the centuries. It further states that the civil authorities have always recognized and respected the great contribution of the Christian Churches, which invest billions in building schools, hospitals, and homes, many for the elderly and disadvantaged, in the Holy Land...

Pope to Maronites: Be a light for the people in your region(Vatican News) Pope Francis on Friday received staff and students from the Pontifical Maronite College here in Rome, telling them that these years of training were the foundation stone of their future as pastors in Lebanon and the whole of the Middle East. Greeting seminarians and staff on Friday, Pope Francis began by reflecting on the figure of St. Maron and invited them to follow the example of this Saint’s qualities of faith and love which, he said, were pure sources for today’s spiritually thirsty people...

Cardinal: don’t forget the suffering of Syria(Vatican News) The Vatican’s representative in Damascus, Cardinal Mario Zenari, has appealed to the international community not to forget the suffering people in Syria. In an interview with the Vatican Newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, the nuncio said there was a growing health emergency and food shortages in the country...

Egypt opens church dedicated to martyred Christians(Sight Magazine) It is a special day for the Coptic community of Minya province, Upper Egypt, as a new church was inaugurated this morning in Al-Our village in remembrance of 20 Egyptian Copts and one Ghanaian Christian beheaded by the so-called Islamic State on the Libyan coast three years ago on Thursday...

The Rev. Miguel Maria Cobo Guzman of Spain sprinkles ashes on a young Palestinian woman from the Latin Patriarchate School during Ash Wednesday Mass on 14 February at Annunciation Church in Beit Jala, West Bank. (photo: CNS/Debbie Hill)

Staffan de Mistura United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria speaks during a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria at the United Nations on 14 February 2018.(photo: Andalou Agency/Getty Images)

UN envoy: Civilians killed ‘on a horrific scale’ in Syria(Al Jazeera) The UN special envoy for Syria has given warning that violence in the country is the worst he has seen since taking the job four years ago. Staffan de Mistura’s remarks on Wednesday came as the US and Russia again traded blame at the UN over the ongoing conflict. “Civilians have been killed on a horrific scale — reports suggest more than 1,000 civilians in the first week of February alone,” he told the UN Security Council...

Russian Orthodox leader criticizes Trump decision on Jerusalem(The Moscow Patriarchate) Answering questions from Romfea, a Greek church news agency, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR), spoke on a number of issues concerning inter-Orthodox relations, the situation in the Middle East and the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church...

Hindu party in India offers to send Christians to Jerusalem for free(Almasdranews.com) The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), the ruling party of India, is trying to woo Indian Christians into voting for it by promising free pilgrimages to the holy sites in Jerusalem if the party breaks through further in upcoming elections...

Gaza’s only power plant shuts down over fuel shortage(The Times of Israel) The closure of the plant, which normally provides around a fifth of Gaza’s electricity, will exacerbate an already critical power shortage. Gaza’s two million residents receive only around four hours of electricity a day...

A ‘small miracle’ for Syrian refugees in Lebanon(Crux) Sana Samia is managing director of the Greek Melkite Catholic Archdiocese of Zahlé, Lebanon, but that’s a job title, not a description, of this 32-year-old married laywoman with a work ethic the size of Texas. What she really is, certainly in the eyes of the Syrian refugees she assists on a daily basis, is a miracle-worker...

Pope Francis says Mass with Melkite Greek patriarch(Vatican News) Pope Francis concelebrated Mass on Tuesday morning with the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Youssef Absi. Instead of delivering a homily, Pope Francis said a few words about the meaning of the day’s celebration, at which members of the Melkite Greek Synod participated...

Damascus warns Israel of ‘more surprises’(The Jerusalem Post) The Syrian government said on Tuesday that Israel would face “more surprises” in future attacks on Syria’s territory, after Syrian air defenses shot down an Israeli F-16 jet. Syrian anti-aircraft fire downed the F-16 as it returned from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria early on Saturday. Both Iran and Russia are supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s near seven-year civil war...

Hindu hardliners attack Christian schools in India(UCANews.com) Hindu hardliners have stepped up intimidation of Christian educational institutions in India, not least Catholic colleges. In one recent case, sheer numbers were used to break through a security cordon with the aim of performing a nationalistic ritual...

Worsening Ethiopia drought threatens to end nomadic lifestyle(AFP) Down a sandy track past a desiccated animal carcass lies a cluster of half-built huts that Ethiopia’s government and aid agencies hope will blunt the worsening toll of repeated droughts. The soon-to-be village of Dabafayed is intended as a new, permanent home for once-nomadic herders made destitute by the country’s back-to-back droughts. The lifestyle change is drastic but necessary, officials say...

An end to Gaza’s misery is as elusive as peace(The New York Times) Gaza has dissolved into such misery that Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, chief of staff of the Israeli Army, has warned the cabinet that it is on the verge of collapse and there is a real threat of another uprising...

Pope Francis meets at the Vatican on 12 February with Italian young people, adults and migrants rescued from human traffickers. The pope responded to the questions five of the young people asked about preventing trafficking and assisting survivors. “Human trafficking,” the Holy Father said, “is a crime against humanity.” Read more here. (photo: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano)

A picture taken on 12 February shows children gathering around their tent in the middle of Gaza City. This family, including eight children, left their apartment after the father lost his job and could no longer pay rent — another sign of the dire financial straits facing so many in Gaza.(photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

With Gaza in financial crisis, fears that ‘an explosion is coming’(The New York Times) Across Gaza, the densely populated enclave of two million Palestinians sandwiched between Israel and Egypt, daily life, long a struggle, is unraveling before people’s eyes. At the heart of the crisis — and its most immediate cause — is a crushing financial squeeze, the result of a tense standoff between Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules Gaza, and Fatah, the secular party entrenched on the West Bank. Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority but was driven out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007...

Indian cardinal expresses ‘anguish’ over increasing threats to pluralism(Catholic Herald) Cardinal Oswald Gracias, newly elected president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, has expressed “anguish” over increasing threats to pluralism in the country. “Intolerance is causing a certain amount of anxiety to us,” Cardinal Gracias said in Bangalore, while addressing a news conference at the end of the assembly of Indian bishops...

Pennsylvania town welcomes growing number of Coptic Christians(York Daily Record) They’d already left their homes in Egypt and landed in York, coming a distance of almost 6,000 miles. Now, after almost two years of worshiping in downtown York, a community of 80 Egyptian Coptic Christian families has found a new home for now — this time, in Dallastown, about seven miles down the road...

Funded by CNEWA, the mobile clinic is an initiative of the Rev. Yousif Jamil Haddad, the pastor of the Virgin Mary Syriac Catholic Church in Zakho, a bustling city close to Turkey and a commercial hub for the export of oil from Kurdistan.

“Many refugees are staying in poor, remote villages where they have no access to medical care,” says Father Haddad, explaining the motivations behind the project that began its operations last June.

Today, the mobile clinic visits 22 villages scattered throughout the hilly northern edges of Kurdistan, serving a population of roughly 15,000 internally displaced Christian, Muslim and Yazidi families. Staffed by a doctor, a pharmacist, an administrator and a driver, the van departs from Zakho around 9 a.m., five days a week. Each morning, the van is loaded with supplies stored on the premises of the Syriac Catholic parish. It then makes its way to one or two villages where, typically, the clinic’s doctor provides medical consultation to some 140 patients.

In the daily efforts of this small operation, displaced from all walks of life have found a lifeline — enabling many of the region’s most vulnerable people to reclaim health and hope.